Preparations for MESC in full swing

This weekend, the Malta Eurovision Song Contest will take place in the Marsa Ship Building – the same place where Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 was held last Saturday.

The Semi-Final will take place this Friday, 21st November. Twenty acts will see the stage that evening, of which only 14 will qualify for the National Selection, scheduled for Saturday, 22nd November. This show will select the Maltese entrant for Eurovision 2015 in Vienna. The winner will be decided by a split vote between tele-voting and jury votes.

The show will be hosted by Lyona Xuereb Gatt and Daniel Chircop. The Semi-Final will be opened by this year’s Maltese Junior Eurovision entrant, Federica Falzon, who will sing her song “Diamonds”, and Conchita Wurst will open the show for the Grand Final on Saturday. Conchita will perform her 2014 Eurovision winning song “Rise Like A Phoenix”. Later on in the show, she will also sing her latest hit called “Heroes”.

The first set of rehearsals took place yesterday. The day was crowned with the rehearsal of the Junior Eurovision theme song #together, which will be sung by all MESC hopefuls this weekend. The second set of first rehearsals is on the repertoire today.

Both MESC shows will be streamed live. The Semi-Final will kick off on Friday at 20:50 (CET), and the Grand Final on Saturday at 20:45 (CET). You can watch the shows via the PBS web portal www.tvm.com.mt/live

My affection for the Contest spans over 35 years, commencing when Daniel represented Yugoslavia in 1983. Since then, I have been tirelessly following the ESC. My initial first-hand experience was Copenhagen 2001 and have been lucky enough to attend the Contest continuously since 2012.
Over the years, Eurovision has grown and changed tremendously but it is still as amazing as ever!